


she thinks of you when she looks up (she remembers she don't care)

by n0rthern_l1ghts



Category: Smallville
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, has background clark/lois but i don't want to clog their tag, has past clark/lana but (again) i don't want to clog their tag, more character tags to be added as they show up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 06:49:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4253514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n0rthern_l1ghts/pseuds/n0rthern_l1ghts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The newspapers are saying that Lex Luthor, first-term U.S. Senator, is engaged to Hannah Reed (yes, Reed as in that political family with more prestige than any except the Kennedys.), who happens to be pregnant. Oh yeah, no potential ulterior motives there.</p><p>Lana never wanted to come back to Metropolis, but she's lived this lie. It's not the kind of saving people she's been doing since she put on the Prometheus suit, but she is...uniquely qualified for this particular rescue mission. Especially because once she's declared alive, Lex Luthor won't be able to marry anyone.</p><p>(aka I decided that this fandom needed a mostly canon compliant Lex/Lana fake marrieds trope/Mr & Mrs Smith trope type fic, so I wrote one).</p>
            </blockquote>





	she thinks of you when she looks up (she remembers she don't care)

**Author's Note:**

> Practically canon-compliant through 8x14. Instead of being declared alive and needing to divorce Lex and be cleared of faking her own death to implicate him, she just stayed legally dead. After 8x14, canon is a good guide map, and most of what I've changed should be clear.
> 
> Title from "Let Her Go" by Jenny Queen and Shane Nicholson, because titles are impossible without country music lyrics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prologue is first person POV of an OFC. It has both Lex and Lana in it, but no other canon characters come in until the story itself (which will be in 2 or 3 parts). If you want to skip the prologue, I think it will detract from the story, but it should still work.

I wake up in a bed that isn't my own with no idea how I got there. I stand up, and find a small collection of simple clothing in my size. From the bedroom, there are two doors. One leads into a bathroom, the other into a large living area with bookshelves, a kitchenette, and a fully stocked refrigerator. There's another door off the living room, but it's locked. The light is all from lamps, and I can tell by the grey all around me and the concrete steps with a thick plexiglass door at the bottom and a heavy, metal door at the top that I'm being held captive in a basement.

So I've been kidnapped. It's something I've been afraid of my whole life (that happens when your grandfather is President of the United States when you're born, and then your uncle is throughout most of your teenage years), but for a kidnapping, this is actually a pretty nice setup. Too nice. Nice enough that I have to wonder who set it up. Lex, to try to get Daddy to do something? No, Daddy does everything that Lex asks. He owes everything to Lex. Daddy, to try to get Lex to do something that he wants? It seems more possible, but I haven't known Daddy to disagree with Lex since Lex saved his career. Grandfather, perhaps, or Uncle John, to try to get Daddy away from Lex? I know they worry that Lex's bad reputation will cost Daddy his chance at the presidency, but why would they take me when our marriage will help lighten the stain of his two just-for-something-to-do marriages (and subsequent divorces)? No, it must be someone else, someone who is preparing for what could happen if they're caught.

When my captor comes down the stairs, everything makes sense. She's a small woman dressed in a deep royal blue, with black combat boots and a red leather jacket that matches the mask that covers her eyes, cheeks, and nose. 

Valkyrie. As in, part-time member of the Justice League, the organization of masked criminals who think they're heroes. The ones who hate my fiance because of the laws he helps push through the Senate to limit their dangerous behavior. Of course the Justice League would want me comfortable. How else could they justify kidnapping?

"I don't know what you're trying to do by keeping me here, but Lex Luthor won't give in to blackmail or threats. He'll catch you and make you pay." My voice is weak. If half of what I've heard is true, this woman could rip me apart with her bare hands. She chuckles.

"I'd like to see him try to catch me, or think of something new to take from me. No, I'm not trying to force his hand. I just needed to get you away from him for long enough to show you who he really is."

"I know who he really is, and I know who you really are." It's hard to read emotions when you can barely see a person's eyes through the eyeholes of a mask and over half their face is covered, but I'm pretty sure she's surprised. My voice grows stronger, and I take my advantage while I have it. "Yes, I know all about what a sham your Justice League is. I know all about Superman."

I think she's actually  _scared_ now, so I twist the knife. 

"I know Superman killed Lex's wife because he was in love with her."

I don't know how I expected her to respond, but I definitely didn't expect her to  _laugh_. She lifted her hand up and touched her mask, then tossed her head, ponytail flying through the air as her hand fell back to her side. 

"Well, that's a new low, even for Lex." Still chuckling and shaking her head, she walked up the stairs and out into the sunlight.

* * *

_"Lex, can I ask you something?"_

_He gestures with his hand for me to continue._

_"What happened to your first wife? Everyone is so desperate to tell me about all the others, but nobody says anything about her."_

_"There isn't much to tell. She was a con artist with a superpower that let her make anyone do whatever she wanted." He pauses, and his face twists into that half-smile he makes when he's joking (or at least I think he's joking...it can be hard to tell). "Luckily, Superman was there to save me."_

_"Superman?"_

_"Oh, yes. Didn't I ever tell you? We were best friends, once."_

_Best friends with Superman? I want to ask him questions about that, but somehow I know he won't give me a straight answer, so I press on._

_"What about the other two wives, the ones before you were declared dead? What really happened?"_

_"Hannah..."_

_"Please. Everyone tries to scare me with different stories about them. I just want to know what the truth is."_

_He sighs._

_"Helen died in a plane crash. I don't know the specifics. Lana...well, that's not something I like to talk about, but I will just this once. For you." He pauses. "Lana was very easy to love. She was brave, and kind, with a thirst for the truth. Oh, and she was absolutely beautiful. I was far from the only person in love with her, and everyone knew I could never be good enough for her. Superman would have done anything to save her from me."_

_With that, he stood and walked from the room, leaving me with chills running down my spine. The conversation was over._

* * *

 

The next time I saw Valkyrie, she had a doctor with her. The main door opened, and I caught a glimpse of sunlight before it slid shut with a loud click.  _  
_

"Hello Hannah," she said as she walked across the room and unlocked one of the two locked doors. "I'm very sorry to be doing this all to you, but right now I need to run some bloodwork and do an ultrasound to make sure you're getting proper medical care for your pregnancy."

This was seriously the strangest kidnapping ever. 

I nodded and followed her into the room, which looked like every examination room I've ever been in. What a ridiculously intense setup.

"Is this where the Justice League holds all of its kidnap victims?"

She just smiled enigmatically and handed me a hospital gown. (A hospital gown in an underground kidnapping lair?? Seriously??)

"Is this where the Justice League conducts illegal medical experiments on citizens?"

"I promise, this will be just like any other visit to an OB-GYN. No medical experiments. We'll wait outside for a few minutes while you change."

* * *

_I can't ask Lex about Lana, but I can feel her ghost everywhere. I wish daily that Lex had left the mansion in Smallville when he moved (or, better yet, in Scotland). When I walk the halls, I can't help but imagine her taking the same path. I don't even know what she looked like, aside from having long, dark hair._

_One day when I walk into Lex's study I see him slip a small pile of photographs into an ornate box and slide it into his desk drawer. The next time he leaves the mansion for a meeting, I sneak into the study and jimmy the drawer open. There's something telling me what's in that box, and I want to see her._

_Sure enough, when I open the box I find pictures of Lex with a brunette woman, as well as a wide silver ring. Rifling through the box, I find newspaper clippings. A wedding announcement, an obituary for Lana Luthor, and, most interestingly, a number of articles about a coffeeshop in Smallville. The earliest is from early 2001 announcing the opening of a coffeeshop owned by Lex Luthor, to be managed by Nell Potter and her niece, Lana Lang._

_I had no idea that Lana, like me, had known Lex for years before getting romantically involved with him. And because of his partnership with her guardian, no less._

_I stuff everything back in the box and put it back in the drawer._

_I'm not the exception. I'm not going to help break any patterns. I'm just a replacement for the dead woman he's still in love with._

_I back cautiously out of the study and flee to my room as quickly as I can._

* * *

 

 _It's two weeks later when I decide I can't do this anymore. It's been two weeks of agonizing over what I've learned, two weeks of google searches because I need to learn more in spite of myself._  

_I looked up Nell Potter and went to visit her. I ask about Lana, but she's nearly as closed-off about her as Lex is. All I learned from her is that she wasn't Lex's partner at the Talon. Lana was._

_I'm not just a replacement for Lex's dead wife. I'm a watered down replacement._

_I haven't decided if I'm going to end things or not, I learn I'm pregnant, and it's settled. The Reed family is the bedrock of the party of family values. I can't have a baby out of wedlock, and I certainly can't have one with one of my father's strongest political ally. Not if I want him to be elected President, like we've always known he must be._

_I stop trying to learn about Lana. I don't want to know._

* * *

 

Two small vials of my freshly-drawn blood sit across the room on a small table. The ultrasound machine is set up, and the doctor is moving the wand over my belly. Like Valkyrie told me, nothing about the examination was out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, the doctor gasps.

"I found a heartbeat."

Valkyrie walks around to get a closer look at the screen. Why are they surprised by this? The doctor looks more confused as she announces that she's found a second heartbeat. Twins? My doctor hadn't said anything.

Finally, she stops and looks at me.

"Ms. Reed, did you know you are carrying triplets?"

Um, what?

* * *

_Once the engagement announcement was published in the papers, the warnings and admonishments began in earnest._

_"You know he just wants the support of the Reed family to become President, right?" From one college acquaintance I haven't spoken to since we worked on a group project sophomore year._

_"Try to divorce him fast. Every time he's been married longer than a month, the wife dies."_

_"Are you a moron? Have you ever picked up a copy of The Daily Planet?"_

_"Just remember what happened to the last woman who married a rich politician who'd been married five times. She got to take care of him as he got goutier and grouchier and hope that maybe he would die so she could be with the person she really loved. Don't do it Hannah. Obviously I can't call you 'Katherine,' which means I'll have to call you 'Parrie,' and that nickname is just tragic," from Katie, who always ~~knows~~ knew how to make me laugh._

_The only good part of the ordeal was getting to hear Katie's voice one more time, but, somehow, remembering the light and easy way she would warn me off something without making me feel bad just makes me want to cry._

* * *

 My face is easy to read. It always has been. I know they can tell that I didn't know about the triplets. Valkyrie walks back around the bed and picks up my hand in hers and squeezes gently. 

"Hannah, we need to take some amniotic fluid to see if we can get any more information."

I nod minutely.

She holds my hand throughout the procedure, and I'm grateful. I know I can't trust her, but there's some part of me that feels more secure in her presence than I have since, well, before Daddy had his PI investigate me. When she leaves, I'm actually disappointed.

* * *

 

She comes back a day later with a folder, which she hands to me. She starts talking immediately, jumping right over pleasantries.

"Your bloodwork came back. You're healthy, but we found remains of drugs used to prepare the body for IVF. The amniotic fluid showed traces of alien DNA. I'm sorry, but we think Lex is using you as an incubator for some sort of cloning experiment, probably one looking to create a superbeing with enough strength to overpower the Justice League. He probably planned to make you think there was just one so that he could take the others to a lab to study."

"But I'd know. I'd figure out out when I had to keep delivering babies after the first one." My mouth feels like it's stuffed with cotton balls, and I can barely get the words out.

"I know, but you should be able to remember having the embryos implanted. Whatever Lex did to keep you from remembering that, I'm sure he can do it again."

I look at the contents of the folder, the words blurring before my eyes into indecipherable symbols. It was impossible, of course. A trick, to make me stop trusting Lex. Yes, I'd seen three fetuses and heard three heartbeats, but whatever they thought Lex could do to hide triplets, surely they could do just as easily to fabricate them.

"Hannah, I'm going to leave the door open for you. I won't help you make your way back to Lex, but I will make sure you don't get hurt. If you decide not to go back, and I really hope you will, either I or someone I trust will be watching over you. Just say something, and we'll help you make a plan and make it work, whatever you want.

"I know that Lex has a way of inspiring loyalty in people. I know that you trust him because of things he's done for your father, not things that he's done for you. I don't know if learning that he betrayed _you_ will be enough to break that trust. If you do go back to him, I will keep looking out for you and I won't stop trying to help you see the light. There are more things I could tell you, but you won't believe them until you want to."

She walks to me and kisses my forehead, barely a whisper of lips over skin, and presses a small purse with a variety of currencies in it into my hand.

She's as good as her word. When she leaves, she leaves all of the doors open for me.

* * *

 

It's a long walk to the nearest town, and when I get there, everyone speaks only Spanish. I spend nearly an hour knocking on doors, looking for someone who speaks even a little bit of English and wishing I had taken anything more than one semester of French.

When I finally find someone who speaks English, it isn't very much. I've never gone into a stranger's house before, but I follow him inside. The Justice League might be a danger to society, but they did save individuals, and I believed that they were watching me. Valkyrie hadn't lied to me about anything else, and I had no reason to doubt her now. They didn't want to hurt me, after all, they just thought they needed to save me from Lex.

" _Superman would have done anything to save her from me,"_ I remembered. I nearly turned around and ran out the door, but if the Justice League decided I was better off dead, abandoning my only chance to find a way home wouldn't help me very much. 

Through slow, broken English, we determined that I would use his phone to call America, and my family would pay him more than enough to cover the charges. The town was Chaclla, a tiny mountain village near Lima. A bubble of hope that I hadn't even realized was there, one that had been born when Valkyrie told me that they would help me live whatever life I chose, popped suddenly. How could I possibly get anywhere without Lex's money?

Except...Valkyrie had just told me she wouldn't help me get home to Lex. She had brought me here, she could get me out. I took the phone, and, with my heart feeling like it was going to beat its way out of my throat, I dialed the only cell phone number I knew by heart.

"Hello?" The woman's voice was unfamiliar, and my heart dropped to my toes. I used to answer that phone like that.

"Sorry, wrong number," I croaked.

I looked at the man across the room, to see him looking uneasy. I realized we'd never exchanged names. We had such a strange, fragile trust between us. If I didn't follow through on my promise, the bill for these calls could ruin his life. He wrung his hands. I could only make one more call before that trust was broken, and I knew what that call had to be. 

And, just like that, I remembered that I didn't know Lex's number. It was programmed into my phone, of course, but Valkyrie hadn't returned that. I called Daddy instead. Luckily he answered on the second ring. I told him that I'd been kidnapped, and where I was, parroting my host as he slowly gave the address. It would still be Lex's jet that came to collect me, of course, and his money that paid for my use of the phone. 

The money. How had I forgotten about the purse that hung off my shoulder? It would take hours for my rescue to arrive, and my host could easily turn on me, and then I'd be penniless. And what if something went wrong? But he'd trusted my word, so I would trust him. 

"I'm sorry, I forgot I had this," I said as I handed it over. His eyes widened, but he took it gratefully. Now he, at least, wasn't dependent on the people coming for me.

* * *

_"Hannah, your father told me what happened." Brokenhearted as I am, I feel as flustered by Daddy's charming, magnetic friend as ever. "I think I can help."_

_My heart leaps. They can be distant and judgmental, but I love my family. I don't want to lose them._

_"I never thought I would have a chance to tell you this," Lex continues, "but I've admired you from afar for years. Maybe even loved you. I know that you aren't in a place to return those feelings, and maybe you never will, but I would love to marry you and protect you from the whispers."_

_He's right, I'm not ready to fall in love yet, but I've wanted him from the moment I saw him. He has a magnetic pull with an air of danger, but he has protected my father like no one else ever has._

_I say yes faster than I've ever agreed to anything in my life._

* * *

 

Somehow, when Lex's men arrived nearly eight hours later, I was relieved to see that he wasn't with them. The longer I was away from Valkyrie, the more confident I grew in the knowledge that it had to be a trick. Alien DNA? How ridiculous.

And Lex hadn't just saved my family, he'd saved me too. I could have lost them so easily.

Even so, I wasn't ready to be stuck in a confined space with him for hours.

* * *

 

When I finally reached the manor, it was nearly two in the morning. I walked into the main room, where I knew he'd be waiting. He ambles over to me, gives me a light kiss on the cheek, and hands me a tumbler of scotch. It's exactly the sort of controlled, collected response I expect from him, but still I want to scream. 

"I'm very sorry I couldn't come meet you. I was in an important meeting, and I figured you shouldn't have to wait for me to be done to be rescued."

I should be angry. I should be  _furious_ that he put a meeting above his fiancee who had been kept underground for a week. Instead, I just felt tired. And it wasn't like I'd even wanted him there in the first place.

"What happened?" He led me over to a chair and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. I sipped tentatively at the scotch, grateful for the burn in my throat.

"It was the Justice League. They told me a bunch of lies about you, said they were going to save me from you."

A flicker of emotion crosses his face, but I can't read it. Anger, maybe, or surprise? Maybe regret? I can never read him, and it's gone too quickly for me to really try.

"Hannah, I'm truly sorry that you had to go through such an ordeal because of me."

"Oh, it's okay. It wasn't so bad, really." I yawn. I just want to go to bed. "The place where they kept me was nicer than some apartments I've seen, and all they did was perform a gynecological exam on me. Lied about the results, but it was just like going to the doctor. No big."

"Did they now." His voice is so cold the whole room feels frosty, in spite of the roaring fire. I shiver and wrap my blanket tighter around myself. When he says "and who was it?" it's like he somehow knows the answer.

"Oh, no, it wasn't  _him._ The only one I saw was Valkyrie."

It had the opposite effect than I expected.

He stood, turned, and hurled his glass into the fire so fast it made my head spin, and sitting here in my own home I was more afraid than I ever was during my kidnapping. 

"Goddamnit, Lana!"

Wait.  _Lana_?

And a person steps into the room from the shadowy hallway. A person with the movement and voice of Valkyrie, and a face I've only seen in pictures and my dreams.

"Hi, Lex. It's been a while."


End file.
